


A Little Like This

by MoscaTheAtheist



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Collection of one shots, F/M, First Kiss, One Shot, one shots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8594434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoscaTheAtheist/pseuds/MoscaTheAtheist
Summary: When Newt left Tina at the New York docks, they both knew that they would see each other again. Little did they know that they had met the person they'd grow old with. But, of course, before they grow old together, they have to have their first kiss together. These are three headcanons of what that first kiss might be like.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The is dedicated to my dearest Mickey. Who aggressively yelled at me in a text message to write down my Fantastic Beasts headcanons even though she didn't even buy me dinner first. Rude.

Tina pulled her pillow tighter over her head as Queenie and Jacob’s giggles filtered out of her room. She was happy that her sister had been able to draw out the memories locked in Jacob’s mind, truly, she was. But did they have to be so loud about it?

Ignoring the fact that they could lose their rather cushy apartment if their landlady caught them with a man on the premises, if Congress found out a no-maj was regularly visiting their apartment, she and Queenie could lose their jobs and end up in jail. Again. 

Something thudded against the wall, followed by Jacob’s laugh and a rush of louder-than-intended shushing from her sister. She sighed and sat up on the couch. The quiet that had settled was not one Tina felt particularly fond of sleeping through, at least for a while. 

She pulled on her robe and leaned down and put on her slippers, trying to put all her focus on getting dressed. She’d wait out their love before she tried to sleep again. Tina stood up, and waved her wand in the general direction of the coffee percolator. The familiar sounds of metal clanking together, coffee grinds sliding into the top of the pot, and the boiling water softly drowning out the quieter words she was determined not to notice. 

She walked closer to the bubbling pot, watching the coffee bubble to the glass-covered hole in the top as Tina waited for nine minutes to tick by so she could at least have something warm in her hand when she ducked out onto the fire escape. 

A loud thud again, more giggles, more hushes. Tina’s eyes widened as she tried to stop her embarrassed smile from sneaking onto her face. She was certain Queenie and Jacob would be beat-red tomorrow morning, and she would just smile and laugh at them. The same routine as it always was when Queenie would apparate into their apartment with a beaming Jacob on her arm. And she’d beat away the small pull on her heart when she thought of the small bundle of letters addressed from England lying under her bed and the man who had stopped sending owls three months back.

The percolator shut off, and with a wave of her wand the coffee slowly streamed upwards and out into a small flowered cup. She picked up the cup and quickly shuffled over to the window. Placing the cup on the windowsill, she popped the window latch, pushed it open, and slipped out into the chilly fall air. She turned around and reached back for her cup.  
“Hello.”

“Merlin’s beard!” Tina flung her cup at the man sitting on her fire escape, ignoring the panicked shout as it shattered on impact. She had her wand out, ready to fire Petrificus Totalus at him before she recognized the figure cowering behind his suitcase. 

Newton Scamander gave a small hesitant smile, “Hello. Miss Goldstein.”

“Newt—Mr. Scamander?” She lowered her wand as he lowered his slowly peaked out from behind his case. 

He looked exactly as he had a year ago. Somehow more lost and more put together than any other person she had ever known. She thought of the few days he had torn her world apart and pieced it back together again. She thought of his bright smile as he rushed back to ask her if he could deliver his book to her in person. She thought of the small stack of letters that had stopped three months back. She thought all this and then thought she would rather like to smack him off her fire escape. 

Instead she shoved her wand up the sleeves of her pajamas, and said, in the most exasperated voice she could muster, “What are you doing here?”

He bit his lip as his smile withered in the face of her glare.

“Well, you see…I had hoped…I had hoped that I could maybe…” he faltered off as he started digging around in his pockets. 

She flexed her hands in frustration. She had thought they were past this. The time he had spent in New York, all the letters had promised that they were at least to the point where her intensity no longer halted his ability to finish his sentences. She had also thought they were beyond last names. But then again, the letters had stopped. 

“I am sorry that I came here so late at night. It was just…I just remembered what you said about men not being allowed on property. But I also didn’t think you would take too kindly to me running into you at work,” he paused and let out his little laugh. “I don’t know if I’m even allowed at your work.”

She rubbed her forehead, and tried to push away the smile threatening to push through her annoyance. She thought of her small bundle of letters, but they seemed less important now that the bumbling wonder of a man sat nervously on her figurative doorstep. 

She held up her hand and his voice faded away. “Would you…would you like to come inside?” 

He was smiling again, that same one he had after she told him she’d like him to deliver a copy of his book to her in person, as he stood up too fast and nearly wacked his head on the steps leading to the apartment above. Another nervous sound that she would generously call a laugh escaped him.

She turned to duck back into her apartment before she caught the middle of something she personally didn’t care to hear her sister finish. She put out her hand, landing on Newt’s arm and stopping him. Even through the layers of his coat and suit, she could feel the tension in his arms. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Queenie and Jacob are…bonding.”

He perked up at the name of his friend he long given up as had forgotten him. He made a move to go inside, and she tightly grasped his arm. Tina shook her head, “Maybe wait until morning, if you’re willing to stick around that long.”

She turned and looked at him as his face colored a blotchy and uncomfortable red as it hit him just what kind of bonding Jacob and Queenie were engaging in. He let out a small “oh,” and mumbled as he pulled away. Tina tried to ignore the sting she felt as his arm left her hand.

They stood silently on the balcony for a moment, silver moonlight washing everything in a silvery-blue light. In this light everything seemed to take on an unreal glow, and she briefly wondered if she was imagining Newt standing awkwardly outside her window on her fire escape. She had heard of witches and wizards who were more in tune with their surroundings slightly losing their grip on reality when the moon was this bright and this full. 

But then he cleared his throat, and she turned to see him trying to look at her and the ground at the same time and she knew that, for some reason, this man she knew she felt much more than a slight attraction was standing in front of her, even after three months of not writing. 

“Mr. Scam—“

“Newt!” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Just call me Newt.”

She smiled, and she was having a bit of trouble trying to remember why she wanted to throw him off her fire escape. 

“Okay,” Tina said. “Newt…This night is going to be long. You broke my coffee. Do you wanna…do you wanna maybe go find a coffee shop to eat in?”

He blinked in surprise. And looked down at the pieces of the shattered cups that hadn’t fallen to the alleyway below, acting for all the world like he hadn’t almost gotten a face full of boiling coffee in his eye less than five minutes before. He pulled out his wand and waved it, bringing the cup up to rest just outside the window seal, each painted flower fully intact again.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

“It’s the least I could do. I mean, I did break your coffee, as you said.”

She laughed and felt months of tension start to trickle out of her body.

“And as for going out,” he patted his case. “I think I know of a nice cup of tea not too far from here, if you’d like?” 

He placed his suitcase on the ground and unhooked the latches. Flipping it open, he held out his hand to her. She put her hands on her hips and shrugged, “Well, if you’ve only got tea.”

She took his hand and stepped into the suitcase. As soon as her hands and feet were firmly holding onto the ladder, she looked at him. “But I’ll have you know, you still owe me a coffee.”

His laugh was a little bolder this time, and she briefly thought if she could keep making his laugh a little bolder every time, she wouldn’t mind that terribly. 

She stood in the small shack at the foot of the staircase, breathing in the rich combination of animal musk and the sharp scent of herbs. It looked like it was day beyond his door, and she wondered how he had rearranged his 

Newt clambered down beside her and turned to his table. In all the things that she remembered about him, she had forgotten how being in his hut near his creatures stripped much of the nervousness and ticks away from him. She had thought she may have started to want him after he saved her from execution, but thinking back on it, it was probably the first time she saw him hold a baby Occamy and tell it not to worry, mummy was there.

She sat down on a stool and watched him bustle around in this small room, seemingly flinging together two cups of tea with equal parts happenstance and purposefulness. It seemed a little too quiet in the room, with only his banging about, so she racked her brain for anything.

“Where’s Pickett?”

He turned towards her, and gently patted his vest’s pocket, where she could just make out the tops of the little Bowtruckle’s leafy head. “Couldn’t shake him off.” He turned back and continued to make their drinks. 

When he finally finished, he placed the cup on the table beside her and leaned next to it. She reached out, only hesitating slightly before grasping it.

“You didn’t accidentally place any of that Swooping Evil venom in my cup?” she said before taking a sip.

He gave a slight chuckle, but gave no response other than to pick up his own cup. 

“You didn’t, did you?” she let the tea dribble out of her mouth.

His eyes widened and he let go of his own cup as he shook his head. It shattered on the floor at their feet.

“I’m so sorry…Of course I didn’t…I should have…” He bent down to gather the pieces of porcelain by hand. Tina placed her hand on his to stop him. 

He froze and looked up at her. 

“You could have just used your wand,” she said quietly.

He shrugged, and there seemed to be something like tears in his eyes.

“It just didn’t occur to me.”

Before she could stop herself, “Just like writing me?”

He closed his eyes and let his head fall. His hand was still under hers.

“I just…Miss Goldstein…” 

“—Tina, please call me Tina—”

“Tina…I wanted to get my manuscript done. It was so close, and I knew that I couldn’t…” He turned his hand so she could slip her fingers between hers.

“What couldn’t you?”

He looked back up at her, and his eyes were most certainly a little wetter than normal. Although, she was sure hers weren’t doing much better. 

He swallowed and took a moment before he said, “I knew that I couldn’t…come back and give you my book if I hadn’t finished it.” 

He looked over at a small bag and made a move to go over to it. She held him still. 

“Newt.” He looked back at her, though she was sure he wanted nothing more than to stare at the ground again. She smiled and brought his hand to her lips. He let out a small sigh as her lips brushed his  
knuckles. And then he smiled, and let out another laugh, and it was a little bolder than the one he had given before, and so she bent down and kissed him.

It wasn’t like the ones she’d see whenever she and Queenie would take the day to act like a couple of no-majs and go to the pictures. It wasn’t anything grand. She hadn’t had many chances before to kiss a guy, and she had a feeling, given how tentatively he kissed her back, how gently he brought a hand to cup her cheek, that he had had even fewer chances. 

But, she thought as she rested her forehead on his and laid her arms around his neck, it was a pretty good kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I do have two other headcanons for how I think these two should kiss for the first time. I am ~emotionally invested~ y'all. They should be posted by Monday (?). It really depends on if I can keep my motivation going. 
> 
> Also, I wrote this during the Mike Pence Hamilton Drama of 11/18/2016 (please google this if you are unaware) and while I was watching and crying during Schindler's List. So if there are typos or grammar mistakes, please just message me and let me know and I'll maybe change it in a timely manner. It's also like 5:30 a.m. So I'm not sure what words are anymore. 
> 
> Also, the title is from that one Ke$ha and 3OH!3 song, "My First Kiss." Look at me turn that club song into something sweet. 
> 
> Any other feedback is appreciated y'all. ♥


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since Mickey was kind enough to drive me home after going to a strangely attentive Dennys with me, I figured I probs should deliver on my promise to finish this thing this weekend.

In retrospect, it may not have been the best idea to not tell anyone where they were going.

But Newt had been so excited when he had received reports of the first verified case of a Jersey Devil fluttering around America’s East Coast that he just hadn’t bothered to stop and let someone at the American Congress know why he was taking off a bit early for the weekend. Well, except for Tina, that is. He had practically bounded up the stairs from his test-run of a Magical Beasts Agency to tell her.

She was significantly less enthusiastic than he had been at the news. And he swore he saw her eye twitch a bit when leaned over her desk to explain to her that now was the perfect time to leave work and take roughly 100-mile journey south to catch it.

“Mr. Scamander, do you have any idea how stupid of an idea that is?” She stood up, holding up her hand when he tried to respond. “You know your new agency is already on thin ice with Congress, why would you—”

“Risk the jobs of hundreds of workers and the hope of all magical creatures in the United States and possibly my visa?” 

He hadn’t meant to shoot off the off-repeated warning directed at him so harshly. He had just placed a lot of hope in this discovery. Hope that this would be the find that would solidify the United States’ Magical Beasts Agency, which would finally end his theoretically temporary employment. Hope that he’d be able to add a new creature to the next edition of his book. Hope that maybe this discovery would be enough to bridge the strange tension that had developed with Tina in the past few months. 

Her face softened as his fell. 

“Look, I know creatures mean a lot to ya. But, Newt, this whole thing,” she moved her hand in the direction of the President’s Office. “This whole thing is on eggshells. You can’t just…duck out here. The idea of protecting magical beasts here is still unpopular with a lot of Senators. You gotta realize how much power they have here.”

If he ever had the chance to be honest with her, he had stopped fully listening when she slipped and used his first name. She never did that during work, and almost never used it when he’d come over and visit, even if her sister did so readily enough.

He moved his hand to cover hers, fingers crinkling up a paper rat that had crossed paths at the wrong time. Her eyes widened slightly, but she didn’t move away. 

“I have to go, and I have to go right now,” he smiled. “This is what I do.”

Her breaths came a little faster, and she moved to say something—

“Miss Goldstein! You have a line from Madame President about that New Salem case!” 

Tina pulled away from him and straightened up. From somewhere behind him he knew her secretary, Miss Tomlinson, was trying to drill a hole in his head with her glare. She was, as far as he knew based on what Queenie had told him, a muggle-born who never quite left the social mores of her Victorian childhood behind. He also knew she very much disapproved of his entire being, but he was able to figure that one out more on his own.

“Just let her know that I’ll be there in a minute!” She turned her attention back to him. “Do not leave here without—“

“Miss Goldstein!” Miss Tomlinson said.

Tina looked about ready to scream, but instead she took a deep breath and closed her eyes. He took that as his cue to step out of the room. His walk down to the basement room he shared with his two excitable trainees was considerably longer than the one up to Tina’s had been. He felt the drag of the day pull on him, and his thoughts were full of a frightened and possibly hurt creature and of a certain woman he couldn’t seem to connect to again after nearly a year away.

He had nearly made it to his agency’s door before he noticed someone was calling his name. And that’s when he saw Tina, running down the hall, wand at the ready. It seemed, she had told him while they gathered his case and tossed the office keys to an assistant, that he was probably going to go after a possible dangerous beast on his own. And, she had said smiling as they left Congress’ halls and stepped into the brisk winter air, she thought she might get in more trouble if she let him get killed in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey than she would if she skipped out on work a bit early.

And again, hindsight is twenty-twenty. It wasn’t as if he had planned for the baa-screech of the bipedal goat-bat creature to scare Tina into dropping her wand, or that getting head-butted by one of its cat-sized babies would be enough to knock him and his case apart. It wasn’t like he thought it was the ideal scenario that Tina had to practically drag him over the sugar sands and up a tree with his own wand because he was slightly concussed after landing on a soft puff of snow hiding a not-so-soft fallen tree branch.

Tina had his wand in her hand, trying to steady them both on the branch of a not-so-stable white cedar while ignoring the magical kickbacks as his wand resisted being used by someone else. There was no other sound than their breathing. Using the wand to steady her, she pushed him back so he could lean his head against the tree. 

He looked up at the night sky, surprised he could see the stars when clouds had gathered in front of the moon. A more rational side of his brain told him that was the concussion thinking for him, but that voice seemed to be rather distant at the moment.

“Well, this outing has taken a rather nasty turn,” he mumbled.

“Shush, Mr. Scamander,” she replied. It was a matter-of-fact order, but he couldn’t help think he heard an underlying tone of concern. 

Newt looked over at her. She was balancing on the branch with apparent ease, using magic to keep her steady and occasionally sending small darts of light down to the forest floor below. He looked at her concentrating, and his new, inhibition-lowering concussed brain figured now would be a good time to ask what his more rational brain was often thinking.

“Why do you do that?”

“Well,” and she said this as if she were speaking to a particularly slow child, “you did see fit to drop your case. And as no one, not even us, really know where we are, I thought it might be a good idea to try and find it before your little devils come back and shove us off this tree.”

He shook his head, and then realized that might have been a bad idea when the stars he was seeing suddenly seemed to tilt to the right and threatened to drag him off the tree. Luckily, Tina had him tied on tight. 

“No, they were just defending their nest. And that's not what I meant. Why do you call me Mr. Scamander?”

She paused, a small ball of light at the tip of his wand, waiting to be dropped.

“Well,” she said cautiously, “that’s your name.”

He shook his head again and his lunch threatened to come up in protest of his movement. 

A few minutes ticked by where no one spoke. She dropped the light to the ground. She let out a small excited sound, waved his wand, and then a second later had her own safely in her palm again. It wasn’t until she tip-toed her way over to where she had bound him to the tree that his concussion took the reins of his brain again that he decided to continue. 

“It’s just that…Well, it’s just that you only sometimes call me that. And sometimes you call me Newt.” She didn’t say anything as she bent down and put his wand in his coat pocket. He grabbed her arm as she made a move to turn her attention back to the forest floor. “Queenie calls me Newt.”

“Do you honestly think this the right time for this conversation?” She ran her free hand through her hair, but left her other under his arm. 

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

It was then that she saw the trickle of blood running down his temple, and her demeanor changed into a much more panicked one. She moved both hands to his head and gently inspected the damage the baby Devil had left on him. “We need to get you back to New York right now.”

She made a move to grab him by the arm, but he pushed her back. “Not without my creatures,” he said. “And not without telling me why you don’t call me Newt.”

She snorted, “I call you Newt plenty.”

He folded his arms and shook his head again, immediately regretting his movement once again. Tina was talking to him, telling him that he would need to cast the accio spell to get his bag back, she didn’t think she knew it well enough to call back the right suitcase. At least, that’s what he could gather when the world stopped tilting away from him. Then she stood up and walked away from him along the branch, dropping multiple bursts of light, which wasn’t helping his growing sense of vertigo.

“You last called me Newt a month ago.”

She stomped her foot. Which, and he thought this as the already fragile branch cracked and started to separate from the tree, was another thing that he could retrospectively decide had been a maybe not so great idea.

Tina didn’t seem to feel the same need to think over their current situation. She pushed off the falling branch, and jumped over to him. When she caught hold of his coat lapels, she pulled him close to her, and he thought it was strange the first thing he thought as they fell to the ground was that they hadn’t been this close physically since she had hugged him after he handed her a first edition copy of his book months ago.

They apparated, and landed at the base of a different tree. She was lying on top of him, her hands cradling the back of his neck and keeping it from hitting the ground on impact. She moved off him, and brought his head to rest across her lap, and her fingers traced the blood trickling down his face. He wanted to reach up and touch her face back, but he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes open. Her lips were moving, but his hearing was a little clogged, everything seemed to be under water. 

That stopped the second she slapped him. 

“—amander! Don’t go to sleep!”

He knew she was worried, probably because apparating while concussed is one of the few rules even he knew better than to break. But still, all he could come up to respond to her was, “Now you hit me, and you still won’t call me Newt.”

Another slap. And if his brain were a little more focused he may have recognized that that wasn’t entirely for keeping him awake. But Tina looked away from him almost immediately afterwards. She had her wand up, and in the light pouring out of it, he could see that she was very near crying.

“Miss Goldstein—”

“Just let me find your damned case, and then I can get us out of here.”

“Miss Goldstein—”

“I know, you’re not supposed to apparate right now, but I think the doctors will forgive me if it gets you out of the cold and away from these little devils.”

“Miss Goldstein!” 

She bit her lip and looked down at him. 

“Because you call me Miss Goldstein! I thought—I thought this is where you wanted us to be at!”

If his mind were a little less fogged up, he probably would have dropped his inquiry there. Instead, he continued.

“But...I didn’t think that. I thought you knew that after we had gotten to know each other so well…“ He trailed off under the force of her glare. She looked very close to hitting him again. 

“In our damned letters—“ She stopped and took a deep breath before looking away and continuing. “Yeah, we were so close in our damn letters. Then you came back and dropped off your book and it was like…It was like we weren’t…It was like we weren’t any closer than anyone else I knew from work, ya know?”

His mind clawed through a fog to get back to his second arrival in New York City. Queenie and Tina had been waiting for him at the docks, they both had hugged him when he made it through customs. And then they had chatted with him on the way to the café in his hotel, where Queenie had left them and he had given Tina his book. She had been delighted, and then she opened it to the first page where he had inscribed, “To my dearest friend, Miss Goldstein,” and her smile had dimmed just a bit.

And he had told her how he admired her friendship, and it had dimmed a bit more. And then Queenie had come back and reaffirmed that he admired her friendship, and it temporarily slipped off her face entirely. And in the following months, anytime she slipped and called him Newt, someone would make a jibe at what close friends they were, and she would shut up again, and put on a smile that even Newt could see something was wrong with.

Snow started to fall around them, and he clumsily lifted his hand to her face, trying to work his thoughts into a single coherent sentence.

“I’m a better writer than talker,” he said. And when she didn’t look down at him, he continued. “Porpentina…Tina, I think you should…you should listen to me more when I write. I’m better that way with people.” 

And then she looked down and her eyes met his. And it was like that moment in her office all over again. 

“Sometimes, Tina…when I talk to people, I say the wrong things. I get...I can talk to the animals, I know what to say when they’re upset and why they’re upset.” He paused for a moment waiting for her response, trying to tread as lightly as he knew how when there wasn’t one. “But I’m not…so good when it comes to people. Especially when it comes to my dearest friends.”

She closed her eyes, and she looked hurt and…oh. Oh, he understood what he was doing wrong. She was pushing back tears, he thought, and when she opened her eyes she wore a thin smile.

“Well, dear friend, let’s get you to the hospital then. Do you wanna call for your suitcase or do you want me to do it?”

He pushed himself off her lap, ignoring the spinning world around him as he did so. 

“No, no. No, you don’t get it,” she reached out to steady him at the same time he reached out for her. The knelt in the snow like that, hands clasped around each other’s arms for a moment. “My letters are better for people then what I say. I would…I would go off the instinct you had from them, if you had an instinct from them.”

He searched her face, begging her to get it. Because he thought if he talked any more he might pass out, and he wouldn’t ever know if it was because he was embarrassed or because of the concussion. She blinked once, twice, and then let out a laugh. 

“You really want me to go off my instinct here?”

He gave the barest of nods.

“Well, remember you told me to.”

And, with that, she leaned forward and kissed him. At first it was the barest of things, both afraid they had dreadfully misread the situation. But then, Tina had sighed, and Newt let the kiss deepen with her breath. And for long little while, there were no sounds in the snow-muted forest.

He was the one who broke up the kiss. Tina kept his head cradled in her hands, while he had his arms wrapped around her waist. She was smiling again, even if it was one that was slightly tinged in fear over the now-dried blood on the side of his head. 

“I think we’re going to have to save a bit of this for later, I believe I may have underestimated the creature here and sustained some damages.”

She laughed at that, kissed his nose, and drew away from him. 

Tina helped him stand, holding him tightly so he didn’t fall over as he pulled out his wand and said, “Accio suitcase.” He sagged against her as his bag slipped back between his fingers, and felt her curl her fingers with his before they vanished away from the Pine Barrens and the Jersey Devils that got away.

She took charge of the apparition spell, getting them to the hospital in one piece. And the doctors had scolded them about the dangers of apparating while concussed, and the dangers of magical creatures, but that wasn’t the worst that could have happened. Especially since Tina pleaded successfully for the staff to not report her visit back to her boss. 

It wasn’t the worst that could have happened at all, especially since Tina kept holding his hand.

And he knew that, even after he went back to document the Devils and she begrudgingly followed to keep him from getting himself killed, that she’d probably be holding his hand then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you see grammar mistakes? Spelling errors? Missing words? That's probs because it's the wee hours of the morning, which is apparently the only time I can write anything. Please just leave a comment and let me know and I may or may not get around to it.
> 
> I am also like 14% less satisfied with how this headcanon turned out in my clumsy writing than I thought I would be. 
> 
> Also, if you're wondering why I come up with weird reasons why they're using each other's last names at the start of the chapters, that's because I 100% can't remember if they started using each other's first names by the end of the movie. In my defense, Queenie distracted me, and I am very gay. 
> 
> Also, why is Newt working in the US Government on a temporary basis in this headcanon? Doesn't that seem like a convoluted way to force Tina and Newt into a working environment? Shhhhhhhhhhh. No more questions now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last round of applause for my girl Mickey, whose aggressive encouragement via texts inspired these chapters.

Newt almost didn’t recognize Tina when she walked into the café. 

Her bobbed hair was stylized and teased out into gentle waves, and she was wearing the darker makeup so popular right now. And he was fairly certain that the blue dress she was wearing was one he had seen her sister wearing the first time they had met. She looked so different than the first time he saw her, when she had had a bit of mustard on her lip and she pinned him to the wall. Somehow, he was somewhat more intimidated by her in the blue, deep-necked dress than when she was threatening to arrest him. 

She didn’t see him at first, and stood in the café foyer with her coat tucked behind her folded arms. She bit her lip as she scanned the customers for him. And his first instinct, when her eyes finally found his and she smiled, was to run away as fast as he could. 

And Newt thought he might have too, if it hadn’t been for Pickett poking his head out from under the collar of his coat. The little Bowtruckle saw Tina and began to peep and gesturing excitedly at Tina as she carefully made her way around the mixed group of muggles and witches and wizards excitedly chatting over their coffees and cakes.   
He looked down to shush and usher him back into the safety of his coat, and when he looked up, Tina stood in front of him.

For a moment, they just stood there. His hand over where Pickett was squeaking under his collar, her coat still tucked between her folded arms. Then:

“I’m so happy to—”

“I’m so glad that—”

They paused, and both let out a nervous giggle. And then there was just the muted chatter of the packed café and the soft clinks of cups and silverware clinking one another. Tina shifted her weight around. He was torn between trying to break through the awkwardness and wanting to sink into the ground. She brought her fist to her mouth and cleared her throat. 

“So…are you gonna invite me to sit down?”

He shot to his feet, knocking his chair back into the customer behind him. He stuttered an apology to an angry man who was at least twice his height. When he brought his chair back up, he turned to Tina and smiled. He rushed over to the chair across from his and pulled it out.

“Would you like…would you like to sit down?”

“I think I would rather like that.” She was grinning, and he rather hoped that it was a smile that was endeared by his inability to handle basic interactions with people.

When she sat down, he tried to get back to his seat without causing any more disasters on his way over. Pickett had moved under his coat to his vest pocket, and he thought he could hear the little creature doing its best impression of a giggle at his display. 

The waiter came by and Tina asked for two black coffees. If he hadn’t been so flustered by Tina looking like she had just stepped off the screen of the muggle’s pictures, he may have interjected that he would rather have the tea. But as it was, he was struggling to form a sentence. 

“You…you look like you’re doing…well,” He said gesturing to all of her. 

She reached up and touched her hair. 

“Yeah, it’s a different look,” she said. “Queenie told me that I should try and look my best if I was gonna meet you…”

Her voice trailed off and soft blush blossomed across her face. She twirled one of her waves around her finger. He thought the glow of pink was perhaps the most becoming thing he had ever seen. 

“It is different,” he said. He felt a sharp poke in his chest from Pickett. Tina away from him.

“Well, it’s not like this is gonna be an everyday thing,” she mumbled.

And then he understood the poke and it was his turn to blush furiously. 

“It should!” Her eyebrows shot up, and her jaw set. 

“It should?” she asked, venom dripping off each syllable.

And now his blotchy blush turned a deeper shade of red, and he stammered. He didn’t know why it was so hard for him to talk to her. It’s not like he hadn’t known that they were going to meet, he had written to tell her that he had finished his book. And she had written back that she was still expecting him to deliver it in person. But it had always been easier for him to communicate with people when he was writing than when he was talking to them. More time to organize his thoughts, the ability to cut out his stammering—people liked him better when he was writing and not talking.

“I just meant…You look good—well—you look well!” he said. “And not that you didn’t before! You always look good, I mean well. But, oh, let me start again.”

She started laughing. And her quiet laugh made him think that he hadn’t entirely ruined whatever it was that they had built with one another. The waiter brought them back their black coffees, which he drank even though he was tempted to transfigure it into tea. Tina took a sip before she took over the conversation. 

And he was glad to let her. He wasn’t sure when in their correspondence he had started letting her guide the subject of each letter. At first, he had just written about the tedium involved in getting something published in London, while she would tell him about the ever-present New Salem movement. But somewhere along the lines, the sections of the letters involving work grew shorter and shorter, and the portions detailing the importance of hot coco and how unfortunate it was that apparating across oceans often left wizards and witches without limbs.

And while they talked she asked him about his creatures and told him about the ways Queenie was sneaking out to visit Jacob’s bakery and trying to draw out his memories and he felt the tension he had been feeling fade further and further into the background of his mind. 

An hour later, after she took the last sip of her coffee and left one final lipstick mark on the mug’s rim, she spread her palms face up on the table. 

“Well?” 

It took him a second to figure why she looked expectant. And it took another poke from Pickett for him to fully remember that he had come here to give her the first copy of his book. 

“Oh, yes!” He picked up his suitcase, switched it to the muggle mode, and flipped it open. Inside were was the first copy of his book, straight off the London presses. Somewhere, in the case’s other mode, there were six other copies, just in case.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled out the little brown and unassuming book. He knew that it was an important text, more than a decade of his life had been dedicated to creating a work the likes the world had never seen. And yet. 

He closed the case and put the little book down on the table in front of them. 

“Is that it?”

He nodded and she scooted her chair around the table. She turned in her chair towards him, picked up the book, and leaned over to him. 

“Did ya add anything while you were away?”

He shook his head. She scrunched her nose and then opened the book. Not being able to stand her disappointment, he reached over and turned to page thirty-eight.

“But I was able to find out a little more about the mooncalves nesting habits, if that’s something you find interesting.”

They sat like that, him turning to pages with the creatures she liked best, and her asking for more information than the book was giving her. And she was beaming at him, looking thrilled to be holding his book in her hands and looking thrilled that he had given it to her. And in that moment, he felt the force of her kindness. It was that same force that sparked his feelings for her over a year ago, when he saw her stop the beating of a young boy she didn’t know in her memories in the Death Pool. Newt let that moment carry him, and he leaned forward and kissed her.

And after a moment, he pulled away. And her eyes were wide and she wasn’t moving. He heard a few snickers from other patrons surrounding them and he drew back in his seat. Tina slowly lifted her hand to touch her lips. He had smeared her lipstick.

“I’m…I’m…” he was breathing quickly, and trying to ignore the pricks in his chest. “Tina, I’m so sorry. I didn’t…I’m not, you know—”

But he wasn’t able to finish that thought, because she had leaned out of her chair following his retreat. And somehow, she managed to land on his lap and with one hand still clutching his book and the other twisted in his coat. And then her lips were on his.

The noise of the café died around them as her hand on his coat drifted up to his face, thumb brushing his cheek. 

And it felt like time had stopped as he had one arm around her back, pulling her closer to him and the other running through her hair. He wasn’t sure how long they would have stayed like that if it hadn’t been for the loud clearing of the throat that came from behind them.

Their waiter stood before them with an unconvincing scowl on his face and his hands on his hips.

“I’m sorry, sir, madam. We don’t allow that kind of display in our restaurant.” 

Tina looked around from her perch on his lap, and she was blushing a deep, deep red. Her lipstick was smeared beyond repair now, and he had mussed up the perfectly coiffed waves in her hair. Given his generally disheveled state, he could only imagine what he looked like. 

The pair stammered their apologies, and Tina quickly pulled out some muggle money to leave on the table as they made their escape. 

Tina pulled him into the nearest alleyway, and the pair apparated somewhere they could discuss his book a little more deeply in private.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your comments, y'all made my day. It's been a hot minute since I was really inspired and motivated enough to write a whole fic all the way through, but I think I might start up again.
> 
> Also, special shout out to Bianca, who told me that they did start using each other's first names by the end of the movie. 
> 
> Also, I've decided Pickett should be the wingman and Queenie should try to give relationship advice in the movies and if these two things don't happen I will riot. 
> 
> These are all of the headcanons I have at the moment. If I ever think of more situations of how these two should kiss for the first time, I'll add another chapter.


End file.
